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Qatar to use robots as camel riders

By Tarek Al-Issawi, Associated Press

DOHA, Qatar  With the reins in one hand and a whip in the other, the purple-jerseyed rider prodded a camel around the track Tuesday at a fast lope. But this boyish jockey attracted none of the ire heaped on camel owners whose beasts are piloted by underfed boys. The jockey was a robot.

A robot jockey, operated in races by remote control, is mounted on a camel during an exercise Tuesday.

By M. Salem, AFP/Getty Images

By 2007, rulers of this energy-rich emirate say all camel racers will be mechanical.

Under the watchful eyes of his Swiss developer and Qatari owners, the robot — dubbed Kamel — rode a racing camel for 1.5 miles, reaching speeds of up to 25 miles per hour.

The developer, Alexandre Colot, of Swiss robotics firm K-Team, wasn't as impressed as the rest of the crowd.

"I wasn't surprised," Colot said as he walked toward the camel to unstrap Kamel and put him in his box for the night. "I've seen him do that before, so to me, it's not something strange."

Colot said it took around a year and $1 million to develop Kamel in its present form.

Spurring the robots' development has been vehement condemnation of human rights groups, who say the sport abuses child jockeys who normally take the reins.

Activists have said there are about 40,000 boy jockeys, some as young as 4, who are either bought from their parents or kidnapped from their home countries and brought to the Gulf to ride.

Rights groups have called on Gulf states like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to ban children from the races. The countries have responded with laws that have thus far failed to fully uproot child jockeys from the sport.

In Qatar, ruling sheiks have seized on robots as the best solution.

Sheik Abdullah bin Saud, the Qatari official in charge of the project, said the plan was to keep developing the robot until it was ready to take over.

"Improve the speed, the weight, the aerodynamics, to reach the ultimate goal of completely phasing out children used as jockeys," Sheik Abdullah said.

The project began in January last year, when K-Team sent a group to study camel races in Doha.

"We came to Doha with only a digital camera," Colot said. "We took detailed shots of the jockeys riding the camels, to capture every possible movement and reaction by the jockeys that occurs during the race."

The result was a robot that takes commands via a wireless remote control with a range of a half-mile.

A camel handler follows the rider in a vehicle and uses a joystick on the laptop-sized remote to issue four instructions: forward, backward, sideways and whip action. The robot, in turn, uses those commands to drive the camel.

The 27-kilogram robot is also equipped with a global positioning system satellite beacon and shock absorbers for the rough ride.

To prevent camels from rejecting the mechanical rider, handlers spray the robot's jersey with traditional Arabic perfume used by trainers before strapping the machine to the camel.

"It was important for us that the camel recognizes and accepts the robot, so we had to make him as human as possible," said Colot.

Qatar, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, bought the rights for the robot in the Gulf, Rashid Ibrahim, a member of the project, said.

"We can't stop these races. They are part of our history and tradition, so we have tried to find an alternative," Sheik Abdullah said.

Race organizers plan to have 20 riding robots ready when racing season starts in October. Sheik Abdullah said plans were underway to set up an assembly plant, a maintenance center and a training institute for robot users.

Sheik Abdullah and Colot said camel racing enthusiasts were skeptical that robots could ride as well as boys, worrying that the machines would ruin the lucrative sport, where winners claim purses of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"We've proved that it works," said Colot. "It will take time, and we'll train some of them to use the robot by June."

The Swiss engineer said that initial results show that robots may soon become the preferred jockeys, not just a second-best alternative.

"We're 10 seconds slower than the fastest time recorded for a 5-kilometer race," he said.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.